Actor Dennis Farina, a former Chicago policeman who played a TV cop on Law & Order during his wide-ranging career, has died at the age of 69.

Dennis Farina, a former Chicago policeman turned tough-guy actor, has died in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Rod Steiger, the beefy, intense actor who won the Oscar as best actor of 1967 for his role as the unrelenting Southern police chief in In the Heat of the Night, died today. He was 78.